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 THE NEW GREEK ENOCH FRAGMENTS.

By PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D.,

Capital University.

That the day of valuable literary finds is by no means passed

is again shown by the discovery of the portions of the apocryphal
gospel and the apocalypse of Peter, together with larger frag-
ments of the Greek text of the book of Enoch, by all odds the
most valuable of the pre-Christian Jewish apocalypses. Not
since the discovery, just ten years ago, of the Teaching of
the Twelve Apostles by Bishop Bryennios, has any new literary
discovery aroused the general interest which the pseudo-Petrine
writings have awakened. While the eagerness to see what the
harvest will be in the case of the Enoch fragments is not so
great, yet there can be no doubt that as their value becomes
better known for text-critical, historical and other purposes, the
interest in them will become deeper and wider. Even as matters
now stand they have already done the service of having furnished
excellent reasons for trusting the Ethiopic text as a whole, in
which language only the book of Enoch has been preserved,
notwithstanding that this version is a translation of a translation,
the original having been Hebrew or Aramaic, and the Ethiopic
having been done out of the Greek.
The manuscript which contained these literary treasures,
was discovered in the winter of 1886-'87, in the Christian burial
city of Akhmim, used from the fifth to the fifteenth century, in
Upper Egypt, the old Panopolis, by excavators under the direc-
tion of the French archaeologist Gr6baut, who at that time, as
the head of the Egyptian Museums, had charge of this work.
The editor, U. Bouriant, an Egyptologist of note, states that the
publication at so late a date, namely the end of 1892, was owing
to fdcheux regards sur lesquels il est inutile de s'dtendre. In reality
359
360 THE BIBLICAL WORLD.

two Greek manuscripts were found in one grave, one on papy-

rus, containing writings of a mathematical character, the other
on parchment, containing the gospel and apocalypse of Peter;
the Enoch fragments; a small segment taken from a canonical
gospel (pasted on the inside of the book cover of the volume);
and one leaf covered with uncial letters, of which Bouriant says,
that it was pasted "sur la garde intirieure " of the cover. It
is manifestly a fragment of the acts of a little-known martyr
Julian. The whole is published in the Mbmoires publids par les
membres de la mission archdologique franfaise au Caire sous la
direction de M. U. Bouriant, (Tome ixme Ier fascicule Paris, Ernest
Leroux 1892, ii. 147, lexicon size); a series of works containing
original materials chiefly from the Orient, together with excel-
lent discussions, which is unfortunately but too little known to
American students. The mathematical codex also is published
in this fascicule by J. Baillet, entitled " La papyrus math/matique
d'Akhmim," and runs to page 89, including several pages in fac-
simile. The editor of the second manuscript, Bouriant, has
devoted nearly his whole attention to the Enoch fragments. Of
the Peter apocalypse and gospel he gives only a translation;
to the Enoch fragments he gives an introduction and partial
commentary, and parts of these he prints twice, once in order to
compare them with the Syncellus Greek fragments, and a second
time in connection with the whole text as far as discovered. His
estimate of the relative worth of the parts of the codex is seen
both in his little " Fragments du texte Grec du livre d'Enock, et de
quelques tcrits attribudsa Saint Pierre, as also is the fact that he
has promised a fac-simile reproduction of the Enoch fragments,
but not of the other documents. Then, too, he has aided in the
publication of the ambitious and really valuable discussion of
these fragments just issued by the French docent Adolphe Lods,
entitled "Le Livre d'Hdnoch, fragments Grecs. . . . publids avec
les variants du texte Athiopien, traduits et annotts " (Paris, 1892,
Leroux). The discussion of these finds has not followed the
estimates of the original editor. The pseudo-gospel and apo-
calypse of Peter have crowded the Enoch fragments somewhat
into the background for the present.
 NEW GREEK ENOCH FRA GMENTS. 361

Bouriant describes the Gizeh manuscript, as it is now called

from the fact that it is deposited in the museum of that city. It
contains thirty - three sheets, which the editor has paged, making
sixty- six pages in all. It is bound in covers somewhat black
with age. The pages are fifteen centimeters high and twelve
centimeters long. No date is mentioned anywhere, but the
editor concludes from the orthography, type of writing, and other
data, that the manuscript is no older than the eighth century and
no younger than the twelfth. As both the pseudo-Petrine
writings date from the second century, according to the judg-
ment of both Harnack and Schiirer and the book of Enoch, in
all or nearly all its parts is pre-christian, at least in the original.
language, the manuscript is considerably removed from the date
of the composition of the writings. The Syncellus Greek frag-
ments of Enoch date from the eighth century, although it is of,
course not known from what older source they were taken. It
will thus be impossible to decide as to the relative age of these
two Greek texts, and their relative value must be determined by
internal criticism. So far as this has been done, the judgment
must be pronounced in favor of the new text, which to all intents
and purposes is a confirmation of the Ethiopic text. The Syn-
cellus fragments differ materially from the latter text, and the
fact that they were one step nearer to the original was regarded
as an evidence in favor their correctness, although they contained
not a few readings that condemn themselves. The new Greek
text agrees in substance with the Ethiopic, and over against the
Syncellus fragments presents the characteristics of one recension.
It also has the advantage over the Syncellus text of being much
longer. The former contains only vi. I-x. 14 and xv. 8 to xvi.
I, i. e. only about 3Y4 pages in Dillmann's German translation.
The new fragments contain virtually the entire first 32
chapters of the book i. e. 16 pages in Dillmann's translation.
This is indeed only about one-fifth of the entire book but yet it
is five times as much of the Greek text as we had before. The
present Greek text still contains small lacune, which arose from
the fact that the eye of the writer jumped from the beginning of
the third to the beginning of the fifth chapter, which begin alike.
362 THE BIBLICAL WORLD.

In this way the two small chapters, three and four, are lacking.
On the other hand, the manuscript has another portion duplicated,
namely, chaps. xx. 2-xxi. 9.
The editor has not followed the order of the documents in
the original manuscript. He begins with Enoch, while the latter
closes with these fragments. In the manuscript the first page
contains only a large Coptic cross; pp. 2-Io bring the fragments
of the gospel of Peter; pp. I1-19 contain the larger portion of
the apocalypse of Peter; pp. 21-66 contain the Enoch frag-
ments, but written by two different hands, namely, chaps. i.-xiv.
by one, and xv.-xxxii. by another. For this reason Bouriant
speaks of "two" fragments, although in the text itself the second
continues the first without a break. He states, however, that
the Petrine pieces are written plus cursive que celle des fragments
d'Enoch.
The publication of these new fragments is a literary event of
great importance for New Testament research. Not only do we
have the Greek original in a better shape than before from which
Jude 14 and 15, were taken-the only direct citation in the New
Testament writings from an apocalypse;-but we have also
reason to put greater confidence in the entire text of the book
of Enoch, notwithstanding that the Gizeh fragments contain quite
a number of unique readings that do not harmonize with the
Ethiopic. The fragments of the more important parts of the
book would indeed have been more welcome, e. g. of the
"Similitudes," or the historical vision in lxxxv.-xc.; but what
we here have is certainly most welcome. A closer study of the
new finds will doubtless still more enhance their value.